


Into the Dragon-Verse

by chlodobird



Series: The Dragon of Hell's Kitchen [9]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awesome Michelle Jones, BAMF Matt Murdock, BAMF Michelle Jones, BAMF Peter Parker, Earth-65, Gen, Gwen's earth is fucked up, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Miles Morales Needs a Hug, Post-Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), Team Dynamics, murderdock, universe hopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23241238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlodobird/pseuds/chlodobird
Summary: After the events of Into the Spider-Verse, Peni figured out how to let people stay in other verses. It's not meant for more than a couple weeks, but the spider-people have taken the opportunity to go universe hopping!
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Peter Parker, Miles Morales & Matt Murdock, Miles Morales & Peter B. Parker & Gwen Stacy, Miles Morales & Peter Parker
Series: The Dragon of Hell's Kitchen [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1660564
Comments: 40
Kudos: 278





	1. Earth-1066

**Author's Note:**

> So, ITSV is canon in this au because it's perfect and needs NO improvement (*stares at MCU, vaguely annoyed*) but that Miles is not my Miles. Also, I've decided that my verse is different enough from the MCU (which is Earth-199999) to get a different number so uh. Earth-1066. That's my official universe number for my dragon au. whooo!  
> I would have included all of the ITSV Spideys (i would die for spider-noir) but having nine people talking at once made my head hurt so there's just 6 people (my 3 characters and the 3 main ITSV spideys). Still, three new spiders? That's more than enough to get our friendly band of idiots investigating.

Miles skidded into Peter’s acdec practice, panting. “Shit, emergency! There’s- something  _ weird _ is going on!”

Flash glared at him. “Seriously, Penis Parker? Getting random kids to come to practice just so you can feel needed?”

“Shut up, Flash,” MJ said sharply. “Peter, get out of here, I’ll drop your stuff off at May’s on my way home.”

Peter gave her a grateful grin and beckoned for Miles to follow him out into the hall. “Let me just grab my suit. What’s wrong?”

“This guy showed up at Visions, and he looked exactly like me. Or, well. Maybe a bit younger. I don’t think he saw me, I got out of there because that was freaky, but. This can’t be good, right?”

“Probably not,” Peter said with a frown. “Maybe a shapeshifter?”

He pulled the bag with his suit out from under the lockers and hurried out of the school, Miles close on his heels. In a nearby alleyway, he changed quickly, while Miles unzipped his jacket and pulled on his mask.

“We’ll swing back to your school. Maybe someone saw where the clone went.”

“Should we tell Matt?”

“Only if it gets dangerous. Recon first.”

Miles nodded seriously, and Peter grinned. “Hey, look on the bright side. Maybe you’ll get to fight your clone! That would be pretty cool.”

On their way over to Brooklyn, all the hairs on Peter’s neck stood up. He followed his gut and zipped to the nearest alley he could hide in. Miles was right behind him, obviously having the same feeling.

Ten seconds later, someone in a black suit flew by, followed closely by a white suited person and a taller one in red and blue. “Shit, call Matt,” Peter hissed, “there’s three of them. Soon as you get done with that, follow us. I’m going to go tail ’em.”

He didn’t wait for a reply before flinging himself out into the streets. He followed their webs, trailing in the breeze, and kept just out of sight. Eventually, they stopped on the side of a building to chat, and Peter scowled. Those were Spider-Man suits! He crawled close enough to listen without being seen, mentaly cursing the whole time.

The one in white, a girl, was the one speaking. “Are you sure about this? Miles ran away at Visions.”

Shit. That was his school. The tall one spoke next. “We’re just reaching out to others like us. It’s not like we’re murdering anybody. I don’t understand why he bailed.”

“If I saw someone who looked just like me, I’d be pretty freaked out.” The Miles clone sounded just like their Miles, and Peter edged a little closer in fascination. Was it time travel? But Miles said he was older than the new guy. Clones? Dimension hopping? Shapeshifting? This was wild.

Tall sounded tired. “I saw someone who looked just like me, and I wasn’t freaked out.”

“He didn’t look just like you,” the younger ones said in unison.

“You’re old, man,” the Miles clone added.

The real Miles joined him in spying. “Matt said he’s on his way.”

At once, three heads swiveled to stare in their direction. That probably wasn’t great. “Get out of here and go find Matt,” Peter hissed. “I’ll talk to them, but you were the one they were looking for.”

“I want to help!”

“You’re the one they were looking for! We can’t let them get you, kid!”

Miles didn’t seem happy, but he left anyway, leaping into motion.

The clone’s mask eyes widened. “No, wait, we just want to talk!”

“You can talk with me,” Peter snarled. “Leave Miles alone.”

“Wait,” the tall one said. “You’re me?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“But he’s so small!” Gwen said, sounding vaguely amused. Peter scowled under his mask.

“No, that’s definitely me. Kid, are you Peter Parker?”

Fuck.

“Who’s Peter Parker? I’m Spider-Man.”

It didn’t work on Matt when they first met, and it didn’t work on any of the new spider-people.

“We’re from another universe,” not-Miles explained.

Gwen corrected him, “Well, three different universes.”

“We’ve been looking for more people like us,” Tall One explained.

A little bit of Peter’s tenseness fell away. It felt true. He didn’t know how he knew, but-

“Who the fuck are you?” Matt growled, glaring down from the roof a dozen feet above them, with Miles next to him.

Oh yeah, in his dragon form.

The other spider-people’s eyes widened. “Holy shit,” Gwen muttered, and Peter felt satisfaction simmering before he remembered the feeling of similarity.

“Double D, I think they might be telling the truth!”

“Doub- shit, Daredevil? Murdock, is that you?” Tall One said, peering upwards.

Gwen immediately bristled at the name. “Miles, get away from him! He’s the fucking Kingpin!”

Miles just edged closer to Matt, and Peter snorted. “Okay, now I’m back on the lying train. Matt’s not the Kingpin, that’s ridiculous.”

Tall One was staring at Gwen in surprise. “Your Murdock is the Kingpin?”

“Yours isn’t?”

“No, both of us have Fisk,” he said, as if it were obvious.

“Yeah,” she said slowly, “and then when Fisk got arrested, Murdock took over. Creepy fuckhead.”

“Fuckhead, yes. But creepy? Only a little!” Peter said.

Matt stared down disapprovingly. “I’m not Murdock.”

“Matt, they already know who Miles and I are. And obviously Tall One knew that you’re Daredevil.”

“My name’s Peter Parker, not Tall One,” Tall One said tiredly.

“What’s the verdict? True or false?” Miles asked Matt.

He grumbled unintelligibly a little bit before relenting, and changing into his human form. “He’s telling the truth, or at least, thinks he is.”

Tall One seemed relieved. “Glad I don’t have to try to fight you. You’re so fucking tall. I’m Peter Parker, from Earth 616. This is Miles Morales, from Earth 1610, and Gwen Stacy, from Earth 65.” He gestured to each of them in turn.

Not-Miles nodded vigorously. “It’s the truth, dude. The three of us are all from different universes, and we’ve been hopping around a little recently trying to build our network. In case of emergencies, y’know?”

“Form a  _ web of connections _ ?” Peter said, laughing hard enough at his pun to slip a few inches down the side of the building.

Matt was still stuck on the Kingpin thing. “Can I fight myself? Can people that aren’t spider-ey hop universes? I want to fight him.”

“He’s not a dragon, it wouldn’t be fair,” not-Miles said offhandedly. His eyes widened. “Wait, is he a dragon? Gwen, are you fighting a dragon?”

“No, he’s not a dragon, he’s an  _ asshole _ . A sadistic, manipulating bastard.”

“I’m going to fight him,” Matt decided. “You sound young. Any version of me that’s mean to kids can get fucked.”

“You’re mean to  _ me _ !” Peter said in mock outrage.

Matt rolled his eyes. “You deserve it.”

“Should I find my verse’s Murdock?” not-Miles wondered out loud.

Tall One immediately shook his head. “He’s an asshole and you’ll regret it.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Peter said. “He’s an asshole and you  _ won’t _ regret it.”

Matt still wasn’t paying much attention to the conversation. “If you’re like thirty years older than Peter, does that mean that your universe’s Matt is thirty years older than I am? Shit, is he an old man still parkouring around Hell’s Kitchen?”

“No, he’s my age,” Tall One sighed. “If he was older than me, we wouldn’t have-” He cut himself off and Matt looked disgusted.

“Seriously? What the fuck?”

Peter frowned. Seriously what?

Oh. 

Oh,  _ gross _ .

“ _ What? _ ” Miles said, evidently piecing it together too. “You and your universe’s Matt had sex?”

Everyone looked revolted, except Tall One, who just looked tired. “I made some dicey choices in my twenties. Shit happens.”

“I’m never visiting your universe,” Matt announced unhappily. “Only the Kingpin Matt universe. To fight,” he clarified, as if anyone had forgotten.

“Earth-65,” Gwen said hopefully. “Feel free to fuck whoever you want in my verse if it means getting rid of Murdock.”

Matt scowled. “I already have Foggy.”

Tall One laughed. “You and Nelson?”

“You got a problem with that?”

“In my verse,” Tall One said in amusement, “You’ve dated half the New York vigilante scene and still haven’t had the guts to talk to Nelson about your feelings. Hell, you’ve been married a few times.”

Matt rolled his eyes. “That’s not news. It’s the Peter thing that’s gross. I mean, not the married thing, but-”

“I mean, Karen, the Punisher, Typhoid Mary, Hawkeye-”

Matt had made a face at the mention of Frank, and was blank at the mention of a “Typhoid Mary”, but Peter was the first one to interrupt Tall One. “Matt and  _ Clint _ ?”

“And the Black Widow,” Tall One shrugged. “What can I say? Vigilantes gossip.”

Peter was reeling. “I am never going to tell them about this. Ever. God, I don’t think I can look them in the eyes anymore. Matt, please don’t have sex with any Avengers in this universe.”

“I’ve got Foggy,” Matt reminded him. “I’m done with my one night stand days.”

The other teenagers were studiously ignoring the two adults. “I bet the Matt in my verse is pretty nice,” not-Miles said casually, trying to move the conversation forward. “I think he and Peter used to work together.”

Peter frowned. “Used to?”

The three new spider-people all avoided eye contact, and not-Miles scooted a little closer to Tall One. “Oh. I forgot you weren’t around during the original team-up. Um, yeah. Fisk killed him. Right after I got my spider bite, before these guys showed up.”

He was distantly aware of Matt bristling in anger above him, and Miles looking at him with concern, but his attention was on not-Miles. What if his Miles hadn’t found Peter and Matt? They were training him, helping him. Did the alternate universe Miles have anyone to help him when all the other Spider-people were in their own universes?

He finally found his voice after what felt like an eternity. “Shit, Miles, I’m so sorry. And you too, Gwen. You both deserve some support in your universes.”

Gwen nodded at him, and the alternate Miles sounded like he was smiling when he said, “Thanks, Peter. I’m glad you’ve got such a cool universe. And, I mean, friends with a dragon? That’s awesome.”

Tall Peter dug in his pockets for something, and tossed it to Peter. Young Miles did the same for Miles. 

“What was that?” Matt asked.

“They open portals,” Tall Peter replied. “Peni made them. She’s another spider-person. There’s six of us dimension-hoppers, and she programmed in our verses.”

“We stopped by Earth-1218, but it was weird. Kind of similar to Peter’s verse, but yuckier.” Gwen said with a wince.

“And then we went to Earth-11326,” Baby Miles grumbled. “Because Peter said it would be fine, we could handle ourselves, and none of us knew that it was an anti-mutant universe. We nearly got ourselves killed showing up in costume.”

“And now we’re here,” Tall Peter finished. “Definitely better than either of those.”

“We’re flattered?” Miles said, his voice unsure.

Matt grinned down. “I want to go fight the anti-mutant verse.”

“If you bail to go fuck up some bigots, Foggy’s gonna kill you,” Peter called up at him.

“Watch me,” he retorted.

Little Miles was staring at Matt wishfully again, and Peter had a feeling he knew what the kid was going to do first once he got back to his own universe.

Apparently, Gwen was on a similar train of thought, and she said genuinely, “Seriously, if you want to come back with me to fight Murdock, please do. My verse is almost as bad as 1218. On top of the whole Murdock situation, fucking _Frank Castle_ is all over me trying to find out my identity.”

“Huh. Frank’s an idiotic mass murderer, but at least he’s a pretty okay guy. Whenever he breezes into town we beat the shit out of each other, but at least he hasn’t shot me in the head since that first time,” Matt said thoughtfully.

“He shot you in the head? What the fuck?” Gwen said in disbelief. “In my verse he’s a detective out to make me miserable, but he’s not a mass murderer.”

Peter nodded. “Yeah, calls himself the Punisher. Instead of catching criminals, he just straight up kills them.”

“Same in my verse,” Tall Peter said.

Baby Miles glanced up at Matt. “I really need to find my verse’s Daredevil. Maybe he can explain who these people are.”

“I can come track him down for you!” Matt said hopefully. “I want to meet a clone. No, wait, I'm still going with Gwen, I want to  _ fight _ my clone.”

“Stop trying to fight people!” Peter scolded.

“Try and stop me!”

Gwen scampered up to the rooftop and opened a portal. “That’s it. You’re my new favorite person, and we’re going to go find Murderdock  _ right now _ .”


	2. Earth-65

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know that meme where it's like "what would you do if you met your clone? fight them or fuck them?" well, Matt's about to pick one of those options with Murderdock and it's definitely not the R rated one

The portal gave Matt a headache. A metaphorical one, although if he stood next to it for too long he was pretty sure the tear in space-time would give him a migraine and then promptly drive him nuts from the not-real wrongness of it.

Still, priorities. He needed to call Foggy before he fucked off to go fight his evil clone.

He pulled out his phone and dialed, listening to it ring a couple times before his boyfriend picked up. “Hey, Fogs!”

“Is Miles okay? You seemed pretty worried when you left.”

“Oh, yeah. Turns out he was being followed by a version of himself from an alternate universe. There’s an alternate universe Peter too, and some girl named Gwen. They’re all Spider-people.”

“Fuck, okay. Makes sense” Foggy sighed. “And you’re calling because . . .”

“I’m going to go to Gwen’s universe and fight myself, because in her verse I became the Kingpin.”

Foggy groaned. “Thanks for letting me know. I’m stating for the record that I’m not happy about this, but I’m not going to be able to  _ stop _ you. Have fun. Don’t let him stab you.”

“I love you,” Matt said, not fighting the smile that spread across his face. “You’re the best.”

“I am. Don’t you forget it,” Foggy said, his exasperation slipping sideways into fondness. “Love you too.”

Matt hung up and stuffed the phone back into his pocket. “Let’s get this show on the road!”

Peter glanced at the Miles who felt wrong, and offered, “Want us to go with you to talk to your Matt?”

Miles perked up. “Another dimension!”

“Thanks, I think that’d be cool,” Weird Miles replied. “Peter, you coming with?”

“Yeah, sure. It would be nice to talk to Aunt May again,” he said, a little sadly.

Matt grinned at Gwen. She had the same weird edge to her that the other two had, but it helped that she wasn’t a distorted version of his friends. He didn’t know what she should sound like, so he wasn’t comparing her (one too old, one too young, not  _ his _ hoard) to the people he knew. 

Miles was more similar to his alternate self than Peter was. It was surreal in to hear his friend (unmistakably Peter, he’d know that heartbeat no matter what) in a body that was older than even Matt was, but also be faced with a version of Miles that was eerie. The alternate dimension Miles was eerily similar to how the kid had been a year ago, before a year of puberty and a year of living with a spider bite. He moved like Miles did before training, and it unsettled Matt to hear his work undone, never-had-been-done.

He shivered imperceptibly and turned to face the portal. “And I just hop through?”

“Yeah. Oh, take this.” Gwen tossed a watch at him. No, wait. Not a watch. It was only shaped like a watch. It was the same as what Miles had held. “Don’t want your atoms glitching.”

“You sure about this?” Weird Miles asked. “Only spiderey people have gone through the portals. We don’t know what’ll happen to a normal- well, a dragon person.”

Matt rolled his eyes and buckled on the watch quickly. Miles sounded like he was about to protest.

Peter sounded exasperated. “This idiot would jump into a portal even without a fancy dimension hopping watch.”

He plastered his most charming smile onto his face and shrugged. “Peter’s probably right.” Before anyone could argue, he leapt into the portal.

Matt emerged on a rooftop, and his world on fire swirled. He stumbled, and flinched at the dizziness that surged as soon as he shook his head to clear it. He had  _ felt _ the dimensions around him. The portal had elongated, like a tunnel, and he could feel other worlds brushing up against him.

His whirling senses were bad enough, and the abrupt change in location did him no favors. He barely registered Gwen until her hand brushed his arm. “You okay?”

“That sucked,” he said, as soon as he caught his breath. “Just give me a sec.”

“Yeah, of course. Do you need to sit down?”

He didn’t bother to nod. His world on fire had already resolved into enough detail to give him a vague sense of where the nearest wall was, and he stumbled over it and sat down.

He leaned his head back against it, and savored the cold of the brick seeping into him. He dipped into his internal fire, hoping that healing would clear his head. Luckily, it only took a minute or so for him to feel mostly normal. The alternate universe still put him a little on edge, but it was New York, and that was good enough for him.

The space between worlds, though? That wasn’t New York. It wasn’t  _ anything _ .

Matt shook his head, and when his world on fire stayed steady, he deemed himself good to go and clambered to his feet with a grin. “I’m good. Let’s go freak out myself.”

Gwen’s heart sounded relieved, even though she kept impressive control over her voice. “Great. I’ll lead the way. Let’s keep the dragon thing a surprise, though. His office is close enough to run to.”

Matt nodded. “Got it. What’s your vigilante name?”

“Just Spider-Woman, don’t let him know my identity. You know your own hearing better than I do.”

When they took off running, Matt kept tilting his head to scan for- well, himself. He normally did such a good job of tuning himself out, that he was having a hard time looking for his own heartbeat.

Hold on . . .

“I think you should wait here. I usually tune out my own body, but I definitely would keep an ear out for an enemy of mine,” he explained. “I might be able to surprise him.”

She nodded. “I’ll wait ten minutes, then go after you. His law firm is a couple blocks that way,” Gwen pointed.

Matt slipped over rooftops, searching for the heartbeat that was familiar, and grinned to himself. Gotcha.

Murdock wasn’t with a client, so Matt crashed through the window of the way-too-nice office. Fuck this guy and the fancy place he had. Clearly Murdock didn’t care about helping the ordinary people of New York.

“I hear you’ve been a bastard recently,” Matt growled at his mirror image.

“Who the fuck are you?” Murdock spat. “How do you sound like me?”

“I know you’re the Kingpin, and I”m not happy about what you’ve been up to. You were supposed to save this city, not fuck it up even more!”

Murdock hissed and lunged at Matt, pulling a sword out of his cane. “Who are you?”

Matt dodged the first four attacks Murdock used, and realized he fought like a Hand soldier. He wasn’t just the Kingpin, he was with the  _ Hand _ . It left a bitter taste in his mouth, but he still grinned. If he fought like a Hand soldier, he could win easily. He was good, but Matt had been fighting the Hand for ages. Sparring with Natasha was way harder. Murdock’s manipulation and criminal network was probably a greater danger to Gwen, because that was harder to learn to defend against.

“I’m what you could have been,” he said with satisfaction. He pulled his sticks out in one smooth movement and began fighting back, easily avoiding the blade Murdock was attacking with. “I’m what you would have been if you hadn’t betrayed your ideals for the Hand.”

“I didn’t betray anything for the Hand. I do whatever I want,” Murdock said, letting out a low chuckle. “If you’re anything like me, you know how good it feels when you hurt someone. Obviously you came here looking for a fight. Don’t you want to punch me, to hurt me? You think that because you hurt people you think deserve it that you’re better than me? Playing judge, jury, and executioner?”

“I don’t kill people,” Matt growled.

“But you enjoy hurting them. I know that darkness in you. I’m not ignoring who I am like you are,” Murdock said spitefully.

Matt hesitated, and the sword would have caught him in between his ribs if he hadn’t twisted out of the way.

“She was right about you,” he said, thinking about the tired girl who was so eager to find a Matt Murdock who was actually helping his city. “You’re an asshole.”

Matt stopped dancing around and finally got into the fight. A dodged punch, a thrown fist. Murdock was good, but Matt was better. Slowly, he gained the advantage. It only took him another thirty seconds to disarm Murdock and knock him out.

Matt kept an ear on his alternate self, but he wasn’t waking up anytime soon. His thoughts kept drifting to the words Murdock had hurled at him. He was right, really. The adrenaline of a fight was thrilling, and some bloody part of him smiled in satisfaction every time he punched someone.

In the back of his mind, he registered that Gwen was swinging towards him, and used the thirty seconds of warning to straighten up and shove down his worries. He’d talk about it later with Foggy, voice the old fears that Murdock had stirred up in him. It had been a couple months since he’d needed to talk about that shit, but looks like a run-in with a bastard version of himself wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Gwen hurtled neatly through the already-shattered window and her heartbeat leaped. “You actually got him!”

“Didn’t even have to turn into a dragon to do it. You were right, by the way, he’s not a dragon. Doesn’t smell like one.”

“What does a dragon smell like?” she asked curiously.

He shrugged. “Kind of pointy?”

“So what do we do with him now?”

Matt pointed to a walled-up area. “There’s a hidden space behind that wall. I assume it’s where he keeps records of his criminal activities. Plus I can smell cocaine. I can call the cops, but you’d better get out of here.”

She hesitated. “Are you going to wear the suit to talk to them? I don’t think that they’ll love that.”

“How similar do we look?”

“Eh. Similar, but he’s ginger and you’ve got brownish hair, and you’re a lot taller.”

“Different enough to not be related?”

She nodded, and Matt grinned. “Then I’ve got a cover story. Wait here for a sec.”

Matt called the cops from Murdock’s desk phone. Before they arrived, Matt tracked down the spare pair of clothes his doppleganger kept in the office (he  _ knew _ that any version of him that did illegal shit was smart enough to keep some spares in case of blood or whatever) and quickly changed outfits. Gwen took his Daredevil suit and left through the window, and Matt reviewed his cover story a couple times more before the cops showed up.

The first one’s heartbeat spiked at the sight of the unconscious man, and he rushed over to handcuff him. The second one focused on Matt, who did his best to keep eye contact. His cover story would fall apart if they knew he was blind.

“I’m Officer Marsh. Are you the one who called 911?”

“I am. My name’s Liam Oliver. I came in to talk to Mr. Murdock about a legal issue I’ve been having, but I saw him standing in front of the open wall, with cocaine. I confronted him about it, and he attacked me. I fought back, and managed to knock him out.”

The officer walked over to the wall. “Here, you said?”

Matt nodded. “I’m not sure how it opens, though. Sorry it got closed while we fought.”

“We’ll need to take your statement,” the officer said while inspecting the door.

“Of course!” Matt plastered on his most charming grin and feigned ignorance. “Anything I can do to help. Can I do it here or do I have to go to the station?”

“We can take your statement here if you’re comfortable with a recorded statement.”

The officer pulled out the audio recorder, and Matt repeated his story into it. When he reached the end, they asked, “And what about the broken window?”

Matt shrugged. “It was like that before I got here.”

“Thank you for your time. You’re free to go.”

Matt nodded at her, and made his way to the stairs. After a flight, he heard the hissing of the safe door opening, and the officer say “Holy  _ shit! _ ”

Apparently, it was a lot of cocaine.

Matt met up with Gwen one roof over, and she bounced on her toes. “How did it go?”

“Great. You said Nelson’s the DA here?” Matt asked. She nodded, and he grinned at her. “He’ll be in jail in no time.”

“Thanks, Matt.”

“Want to head over to Miles’ universe? I want to meet a me that’s maybe a little less evil.”

Gwen opened up a portal as an answer, and Matt braced himself. Time to do this shit again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god, Matt meeting a shitty version of himself and immediately getting into a fistfight/swordfight? amazing. this is just matt murdock vs his edgy emo phase. it's like if any of us traveled back in time to middle school, only Murderdock never outgrew it.  
> I just want a Murdock in ITSV 2. I don’t care which one. Miles’ Matt??? Peter B’s? GWEN’S???!!!! Doesn’t matter I love them all and I don’t even know them. And shoutout to GayKravitz, who wrote a fic called “and by god he was good” that’s an AMAZING fic about how ITSV Matt Murdock would react to Fisk killing Peter and Miles replacing him. https://archiveofourown.org/works/19315105  
> Anyway if you needed any more reason to read the earth-65 comics, i was poking around the earth-65 pages on the marvel wiki and apparently they made Trump a villain that was defeated by Captain America (who is Samantha Wilson in E-65, which is AWESOME)


	3. Earth-1610, part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's better than one Miles? Two of them! You know what's better than one Uncle Aaron? Two of th- jk it's any Uncle Aaron who's not dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote the next chapter two days ago and i’ve spent the whole time since then trying to write this one becuase it flows better if this part goes first but it was so hard to write. I’m so fucking tired. bone appetite.

Miles turned to his alternate, older self and wondered for a moment if this was how the other two Peters felt when they met Peter B. Then he remembered that he had no idea how old Noir and Ham actually were.

While he contemplated what Noir looked like under the mask (two months of working together and he still didn’t know? This was workplace  _ discrimination _ ), Other Miles’ phone rang.

Other Miles peeled off his mask to reveal a grin. “Hey, it’s Uncle Aaron! Hold on, I’ll be right back.”

Miles froze.

It couldn’t be him.

It wasn’t him, it was a different one, Peter and Gwen made it very clear that talking to dead loved ones in other universes just hurt.

But- They all went to Aunt May for help, and she seemed a little sadder, but a little lighter every time Peter dropped by.

Without thinking, he skittered up the building and snatched the phone out of Big Miles’ hands.

“Uncle Aaron?” he croaked, not sure what to expect.

The man immediately sounded concerned. “Wait, what happened? Miles?”

It was him.

It really was.

He was distantly aware of Peter B keeping hold of Young Peter and staring at him with understanding in his eyes, and Other Miles frowning at him.

“What the hell, dude?”

He ignored the other him, and instead listened to Uncle Aaron sound concerned. “Miles? Are you okay? Come on, man, say something, you sounded worried.”

Miles ripped his mask off and rubbed at his eyes. Hee shook his head to get control of his voice and replied (mostly) steadily, “I’m fine. Um. What were you calling about? Did something happen?”

“Yeah,” he said, still a little worried-sounding, but letting Miles steer the conversation. “I just wanted to let you know about an arms deal going down. I’ll text you the details as soon as I can get ’em. You know the drill.”

“Yeah, ’course I do.”

“You sure you’re okay?” Aaron added

“I am! Thanks for the heads-up, you’re the best.” Miles hesitated, and added, “I love you, man.”

“Love you too, Miles, I’ll catch you later.”

He hung up, and Miles stared at the phone until Other Miles spoke. “What happened to him?”

“He had some info about-”

“No, in your verse. What happened?”

Miles couldn’t look him in the eyes. “He died.”

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Other Him said. “Was it because of the Prowler thing?”

He nodded.

“I’m so sorry. Um, would it help if I talked about what happened here?”

Miles remembered how long May spent listening to B talk about his dimension, and nodded again.

“Well, he’s awesome. He taught me how to paint, and he used to take me down into the subway system. It’s where I got bit last year. Um, I didn’t hang out with him as much once I became Spider-Man, because I don’t have as much time anymore, but we still talk a lot. I found out he was Prowler last May.”

He took a deep breath, probably remembering what happened, and Miles leaned forward. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Peters swing away to a nearby rooftop, to give them some privacy.

“After I found out he was the Prowler, we talked about it a lot, and I talked to Matt, and Uncle Aaron and I worked out a system. He tells us about crimes that hurt the community-”

“Like arms deals,” Miles said, understanding dawning.

“Exactly. That way we can spend our time stopping shit like that instead of people who just need to support their families. Plus, when we fight, it’s like Dr. Doof and Perry the Platypus.”

At Miles’ confused glance, he hastened to explain. “No one gets hurt, it’s mostly to show that he’s still all evil and criminal-ey. And when he robs a big corporation, we look the other way. Cuz like, fuck Amazon, y’know? Plus, Uncle Aaron’s started funding a lot of community-based projects.”

Miles felt a pang of grief at the thought of what could have been, if Fisk hadn’t cut off all the possibilities.

Alternate Miles must have understood the look on his face, because he looked determined and tugged his mask back on. Miles followed his lead, and Other Miles said, “Come on. We’re going to go see him.”

Miles hesitated, but Older Miles turned and swung off the roof without waiting to see if he followed.

He did, reminding himself the whole way over to Uncle Aaron’s apartment that Peter had the guts to go talk to Aunt May.

When they got there, they slipped in through the fire escape, and Miles tried to forget the last time he snuck into the apartment through the window.

The room itself was so similar. Some of the posters were different, and he was pretty sure there were some more plants. The uncanny resemblance unnerved him, and he was ready to bail and go home until Other Miles called, “Uncle Aaron, you home?”

“Yeah, hold up!”

When Aaron entered the living room, Miles’s jaw dropped, and he distantly registered the tingling of invisibility.

It was him.

Uncle Aaron.

Other Miles shut his eyes and tilted his head, and Miles wondered what he was doing until Older Miles slapped his shoulder and he popped back into visibility.

“Hey!”

“Aha! Gotcha! Matt’s gonna be so proud,” alternate Miles said in satisfaction.

Uncle Aaron backpedaled a little. “What the hell?”

“Oh! Uncle Aaron, this is Miles! He’s from another universe,” he explained. Miles peeled off his mask in an attempt to confirm their story, and the other Miles followed suit. 

“Is this why you sounded weird on the phone?” Aaron asked, looking at his Miles.

“That was me. In my universe, you’re, um,” Miles closed his eyes, trying not to think about that alleyway. “You died. Fisk shot you.”

Aaron paused, but recovered from his surprise quickly and sighed. “I’m sorry.”

Miles shrugged. “I am too.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, reading the guilt in Miles’ eyes.

“I know,” he said reluctantly. The other spiders had emphasized that. It didn’t matter. None of them followed their own advice.

“You can come here as much as you want,” Uncle Aaron offered. Miles could tell he already knew what the answer was going to be.

“I don’t want to replace him,” he said honestly, “I just wanted to see an Uncle Aaron that was doing well. It’s amazing that you two are working together.”

Aaron smiled, and pulled him into a hug. Miles stiffened, but sank into the hug almost instantly. The room looked off and Aaron looked slightly different, but when he closed his eyes tightly, he could pretend he was hugging his own uncle.

After an eternity, Miles pulled away. “Thank you.”

Uncle Aaron nodded at him, and Miles dashed for the window, pausing only to put his mask back on. He swung aimlessly, trying to keep his thoughts from going in circles. It took fifteen minutes for him to calm down enough to cobble together any string of words longer than a sentence and a half. Okay. He needed to find the other spiders again. They needed to figure out what they wanted to do next. They needed- they needed-

He needed to talk to B. He was the only one who would get it.

He landed lightly on the side of an office building and dialled. “Hey, Peter, where are you?”

“Little Me’s apartment. You want me to head over to you or you come here?”

“I’ll head over.”

“Sending you the address then. See you in a few.”

Miles glanced at the address and squinted out over the skyline, calculating a path. Easy enough. He was there in a couple minutes, and texted B that he was on the roof.

The older Spidey took one look at Miles’ face and guessed, “You went and talked to him, huh.”

He nodded, and Peter went to the edge to sit. “I know. It’s hard. But it’s worth it, for closure. Aunt May passed away peacefully, in her sleep, and I still felt better after talking to you verse’s Aunt May. Knowing that there’s versions of her out there, happy and alive? It made all the difference in the world, and I’m pretty sure she feels the same way about me.”

“But that’s how he could have been. It shouldn’t have happened this way,” Miles said quietly. He could feel tears starting to well up.

“It’s not fair, I know it’s not fair. But Miles, Aaron made his choice. No one can change that, and I guarantee he wouldn’t either.”

Miles stared out over the city. “Is it my fault?”

Peter was quiet for a while. “It’s easy to feel guilty about stuff when you save so many people, but it wasn’t your fault. You can’t control what other people do, you can only control how you react. It’s a lesson I hope you learn faster than I did.”

“Okay,” he said softly.

He sat with Peter, overlooking New York as the minutes passed. At some point, Young Peter bounced happily out onto the roof, dragging another teen behind him, and Old Miles followed him, obviously having found his way to Peter’s apartment.

“Guys, meet MJ! She’s awesome.”

Miles took a deep breath and shook off his gloom. He turned and grinned at the two teens behind him, and stuck out his hand to shake. “I’m Miles!”

She raised an eyebrow and shook his hand. “You look just like our Miles. Weird.” She turned to Peter, scrutinizing him. “You’re old.”

“Hey!” he objected. “Why does everyone say that? I’m not even forty!”

She crossed her arms. “You’ve been doing this for twenty years? What the hell?”

“I’m going to do it for twenty years!” Young Peter protested.

MJ rolled her eyes. “Maybe in twenty years you’ll be obsolete.”

“That’s the goal!” he said cheerfully.

She turned to Miles, and he squirmed a little under her gaze. She did not seem like someone to take any shit. Or give a shit. No shit here. He mentally cursed at his distraction and refocused, just in time for her to ask, “So do you paint too?”

“Yes?” he squeaked. She was fucking  _ scary _ .

“Good,” MJ said approvingly. “Keep it up. Go to detention and draw the people there.”

Miles vowed silently that he would do what she said, because she sounded like someone who had her shit together (a rare occurrence in the vigilante world).

“Okay. Peter filled me in, and here’s what we’re going to do,” she continued. Miles was willing to let her take charge, and based on the Peter and Miles of this universe, this was normal.

“We’re going to go to Earth-1610, and Miles is going to get a mentor. No minors should vigilante alone.”

“I don’t want a mentor!” he protested. Who would she make him talk to?

She raised her eyebrows. “Partner then. You’re going to go find Murdock, and tell him you’re working together.”

He didn’t quite know how she did it, but through a combination of confidence and light bullying, she convinced the group to go to Miles’ world, and then ushered the team off to visit Aunt May, leaving Miles alone on the doorstep of Nelson & Murdock.

He shuffled in place, working up the courage to go in. It took another two minutes, but he eventually opened the door, and smiled slightly at the jingling bell. “Hello? Is Mr. Murdock there?”

“I’m back here,” he called. “Did you have an appointment?”

“Um, no. Sorry. I’m not actually here about lawyer stuff.”

Matt emerged from one of the rooms, looking faintly bemused. “Wait, who are you?”

Foggy was right behind him. “What’s going on?”

“I’m Miles Morales. I need to talk to Mr. Murdock about Peter Parker.”

Matt immediately shifted posture, his shoulders set and his face cold. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Wait, please! It’s important!”

“You heard him,” Foggy said, moving forward to gently usher Miles out. He glanced over his shoulder at his angry partner, and scowled at the teen. “Get out of here, kiddo.”

Miles dodged him and stared at Matt. “I know you’re Daredevil!”

Both of the lawyers froze, and Miles stepped closer to the other vigilante. “You’re Daredevil. You worked with Peter.”

“How the hell do you know that I'm Daredevil?” Matt growled.

“Because I met a version of you from an alternate dimension,” Miles said halfheartedly. There was no way he would believe him.

Matt tilted his head, and nodded at Foggy. “He’s telling the truth.”

“Seriously?” Foggy said curiously. “Have you met an alternate me?”

Miles shook his head, and glanced at Matt again. “Um, I came to ask if we could work together.”

Foggy’s expression shifted as realization dawned. “You’re that new Spider-Man.”

Matt glared, and his voice took on a dangerous edge. “You’re the one replacing Peter?”

“No! Well, yes, but he asked me to!” Miles shuffled in place and stared down at the floor. “I was there when Fisk killed him. He promised to teach me how to Spider-Man before- um.”

Foggy sighed tiredly. “I think you’d better tell us what actually happened, kid. When Matt went to go talk to May, she didn’t say much. Then he went after Fisk, and the earthquakes started and he got distracted saving people. Then we saw on the news that Fisk was arrested and May just said it was over. What the fuck  _ happened _ ?”

Miles explained the collider and the multiple spider-people, leaving out the parts about his uncle. He segued into the process of making the portal watches and finding the team in the other verse. As he spoke, Foggy and Matt nodded along, although the latter still looked suspicious of Miles.

“And when we met the other Matt, Peter, and Miles, we started comparing verses. Gwen stole the other Matt to go fight her Murdock, because he’s a jerk, and the others and I came here. They went off to go talk to Aunt May, cause they figured I should do this part alone,” Mile finished.

“So you, what, want me to train you?” Matt growled.

“No! I just, well. I thought it would be nice to work with someone.”

“I worked with Peter, not you.”

Miles glared at Matt. “Peter B was right. He said you were an asshole and I’d regret trying to talk to you. The younger Peter said it would work out, but I shouldn’t have believed him.”

He stormed out, and got as far as the doorknob before Matt called, “Wait.”

When he turned around, the lawyer was staring in his direction tiredly. “It’s just-” he hesitated. “Peter was my  _ friend _ .”

He gestured helplessly, as if it explained everything. Miles remembered the look in Matt’s dragon eyes when he told them to get away from Peter, and thought maybe it did.

“I know you were close with Peter,” he said, thinking of the friendly bickering between the Earth-1066 vigilantes. “But I’ve seen how amazing you can be. And I know it won’t be the same without Peter, but I want to work with someone, with  _ you _ . That time with the other spider-people, fighting Fisk? It was hard, and scary, but so much better being with them than fighting crime alone.”

Matt tilted his head, listening to something Miles couldn’t even imagine, or even just thinking and weighing his decision.

“Alright. One test run. Then we can figure it out from there.”

Miles grinned. “Awesome, man!”

He dug his phone out of his pocket and dialed Aunt May. “Hi! We’re good, can you send over the others when you’re tired of them?”

Matt caught Miles’ attention and said, “The workday is almost over. Send them to our apartment. Aunt May knows where it is.”

Miles relayed the message, and hung up, still beaming. “Is there anything I can do to help you finish up for the day?”

Matt shrugged, and Foggy glanced around. “No, I think we’re good. Really, I just need to file a couple things before we leave.”

Miles bounced on his toes and nodded. “Alrighty!” He pulled out his sketchbook and scuttled up the wall to happily lay on the ceiling and draw.

“Just let me know when you guys are ready to leave!”

He got a couple of maybe-almost-fond nods in return, and soon his attention was fully on the blank pages in front of him. He stole a glance at Matt through the man’s open door, and began sketching. The images bled from his pencil onto the page with ease, and Miles barely even noticed the time passing.

He had the perfect wall in mind for a painting of the friendly neighborhood Devil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I REFUSE to have consistent capitalism for “spidey” vs “Spidey” and “Spider-people” vs “spider-people”. I get that Spider-Man is capitalized, but any other spider-ey shit? Up to the will of the gods  
> Also, I wrote the second half of this chapter (the part with Matt) before I wrote the first half, so as I started writing the Aaron stuff, I realized I would have to SOMEHOW figure out how to go from “just saw my dead uncle. Pretty bummed.” to “i’m gonna chill on a ceiling and happily draw!!!”. I was screaming in the back of my head for like 2 solid hours until i figured “hey, you know who lifts the mood? MJ” and stuck her in there bc i love her.  
> Anyway, as you might have noticed from the several days in between now and the last update, now that school's started, updates are going to slow down! I have a little bit of stuff prewritten, and a whole list of ideas, it's just a matter of finding the time and energy and creativity to write. Luckily, having the list should help, bc that'll get me writing, and writing starts to get my ideas flowing (God has cursed me for my hubris and my work is never finished)


	4. Earth-1610, pt 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My only written notes for this chapter:  
> -foggy and matt are engaged  
> -they have 2 cats and they love them SO much  
> -matt doesn’t know he’s a dragon but he is and Our Matt is going to use this to fuck with him so much  
> That’s all you really need, right?

It was a little easier going from one weird Earth to another. Like, instead of going from sitting on a beach to drowning, it was going from saltwater to freshwater. They were different, and they felt wacky, but at least the transition wasn’t as rough. Matt didn’t even need to sit down, he just held still for ten seconds until he stopped feeling dizzy.

Every New York was a little different. In Matt’s New York, it was dirty and loud but it was home, and his world flickered like flames. Gwen’s world was blurrier, the lines of his radar looser. Miles’s universe was cleaner and clearer. It wasn’t just that there was less trash and dirt, it was a sense to it. Matt’s ‘world on fire’ seemed more still, even though it still moved with the shifts in information. Miles’ verse was  _ crisp _ , like a wind that cut through a jacket.

“The multiverse is fucking weird,” he told Gwen fervently.

She shrugged. “Where do you think you live in this verse?”

“No fucking clue. My office was different in your verse, why would I know where I live here?”

“Can’t you like . . . sniff it out?”

Matt tilted his head. “I can try, but we’ll have to get to Hell’s Kitchen. No way would I move out of there.”

Gwen headed for the edge of the roof, but Matt stopped her. “I’m guessing we’re in Queens. Let’s do this my way.”

“How?”

He flashed a smile that was a little too sharp, and shifted into his dragon skin. “Hop on, Spider-Woman.”

She laughed and jumped onto his back, landing lightly. “This is awesome.”

He soared into the sky with ease, and banked to head for Hell’s Kitchen. No matter what universe he was in, he would always be able to find his way home.

He took a moment to enjoy the breeze, before gliding in lazy circles onto the roof of what was his apartment in his own verse.

“I’m here,” he said after a second of listening. “So’s Foggy. Plus the others, actually.”

“Oh cool! I didn’t realize they were heading here. Does this place have roof access?”

“First thing I looked for in an apartment. The stairs are hell but the roof is worth it.”

“Smart,” she nodded at him. “Oh, I got it!”

They slipped into the apartment, and Matt sighed in relief at the sound of Miles and Peter’s heartbeats. He liked Gwen, but those two were normal-sounding islands in the sea of not-right.

“Hey guys, I beat up myself,” he announced.

The not-quite-him bristled at his voice. “Foggy. Foggy, that’s not me.”

“Oh my god, you’re a baby,” Matt said in delight. “What are you, like twenty-three?”

“Twenty- _ six _ ,” he spat. “You sound  _ wrong _ and I don’t like it.”

“Oh my god, you’re so young.”

Peter groaned. “Matt, you’re only like thirty ish. Be nice. What are you even  _ doing  _ here?”

“I wanted to meet more versions of me!” He turned to the other Matt and began the friendly interrogation. “So, how long have you been Daredevil?”

“Since college. Peter and I used to hang out together,” he said with a wince.

“You two didn’t . . .” Peter said worriedly.

“Nah, he was dating MJ and I was dating Foggy.”

“You two got together in college?” Matt said in surprise. Damn. Nice work.

Not-him sounded suspicious. “How long did it take you?”

“A while,” he admitted.

Peter snorted. “You two were in love for years before you got together, dumbass.”

“I  _ know _ ,” Matt said grumpily. “Trust me, I am aware.”

Younger Him was blatantly sniffing the air. “Why do you smell so fucking weird? Like wind?”

Matt sniffed back, one, twice, and laughed in delight. “Baby Miles, you’ve found yourself a dragon! Gwen, you might want to check yours again, I think I could have missed it.  _ Apparently _ the smell of a dragon is more subtle if they haven’t transformed yet. Shame there’s no dragon 101 seminar in college.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “How the fuck am I supposed to check that? Poke him until he Hulks out and eats me?”

“I’ll come back sometime and smell him for you, no worries,” Matt said with a careless wave of his hand. The presence of another dragon was interesting though.

“Sorry, can we go back to the dragon thing?” Young Foggy said in concern. “Matt’s a  _ dragon _ ?”

Matt sauntered closer to his younger self. “Oh, I bet it’s putting you on edge having me here, huh?”

Young Him growled back, and Matt grinned. “There it is. The devil in you? That’s the dragon. Come on. I’m in your territory. You know that’s wrong. Next thing you know, I’ll steal your hoard-”

Young Matt lunged at him, and Matt dodged with a thrill running down his spine.

Foggy groaned so much like Matt’s Foggy. “You two, stop it! Old Matt, stop goading him, and Matt, please just ignore him, he’s only trying to annoy you because you’re him but more successful.”

“Hey!” Matt objected.

Old Peter laughed. “You and me both.”

Gwen joined in. “You’ve already fought evil Murdock, isn’t that enough punching for one day?”

“Oh, if you spent more time with this idiot, you’d know there’s never enough punching,” Peter sighed.

“You fought an evil me?” Young Matt suddenly seemed intrigued instead of annoyed. “Can I? Are there more evil mes?”

“Was I evil too?” Foggy asked curiously.

Matt shrugged. “You weren’t at the firm. Gwen?”

“Nelson’s the DA.”

Matt made a face at that, and judging by the stifled laughter around the room, the other two defense lawyers did the same thing.

“Hey, Miles,” Gwen said, suddenly getting serious. “Is he, y’know . . .”

She made a few gestures that Matt couldn’t quite figure out, and not-Miles nodded at her. “Yeah, he’s good. I think it’s going to work really well.”

“What a nice kid,” Matt told nobody in particular. “Wish I had a Miles that respected me.” He ignored Peter and Miles laughing at him.

Something curled itself around Matt’s ankle and he flinched. “What the fuck?” He tilted his head. A cat? What was it doing here?

“We have two cats,” Foggy belatedly explained. “That one’s Ruthie, short for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, of course, and the other one that’s really tiny is called Rosie, short for Roosevelt.”

“Franklin Jr,” alternate Matt said, sounding pleased with himself.

Foggy sighed. “ _ Never _ . I know you want that, but we named her for Roosevelt’s fantastic expansion of welfare in the 30s, remember?”

Matt ignored their bickering and gently picked up Ruthie. He cradled her in his arms and started scratching behind her chin and ears. “Aw, you’re so sweet, aren’t you?” She curled into his chest and started purring, and Matt’s jaw dropped.

“Peter,” he whispered, “Miles. I want one.”

He focused on the two and realized they were busy cooing over Rosie. Gwen snuck up behind him and helped him give the cat attention. “She’s lovely. I wish I had a cat,” she said wistfully, “but my dad’s allergic. Plus, I don’t think I have enough time to take care of her, with the spider-ing and the band and everything.”

Matt shifted the cat’s weight into one arm and pulled his phone out to give to Gwen. “Can you take a picture of her? Foggy needs to see this.”

“You’re going to regret giving me picture-taking authorization,” Gwen promised. “You’ll have more photos of an alternate dimension cat than you know what to do with.”

“Good.”

Peter sauntered over, the tiny cat draped over his shoulders. “Matt, did I hear you say you wanted a cat?”

“They’re not messy or smelly,” he shrugged. “They do their own thing. Plus, I’m home more often now, and it would be nice to have a cat to keep Foggy and I company.”

Weird Foggy’s heartbeat did a flip. “It’s like listening to you,” he said, nudging his fiancee’s shoulder.

“Matt, you have to get a cat,” Miles said, appearing at his shoulder. “We’ll go with you to pick one out!”

Matt had an inkling of where that would lead. “If you want to pet the shelter cats, just go there.”

“I can’t, you’ve got to be eighteen or with an adult in order to hold them,” he said in disappointment.

Gwen’s heartbeat stumbled. “Dude, in your dimension adults are eighteen and up?”

“Yeah, why?”

“It’s seventeen, in mine.”

“Seriously? Like in Harry Potter?” Peter asked.

“No,” she said patiently, “Harry Potter was an adult at age nineteen. Duh. Nine books.”

Peter’s heart spiked. “Take me to your dimension and give me all of them  _ right now _ .”

Gwen shrugged and opened a portal. “I don’t think my parents will miss them if they vanish off the shelves at home. Why, how many are in the series in your world?”

“Only seven!”

“ _ Seriously? _ That’s fucking wild. I’ll trade you,” she offered.

“Deal. So what else is different? I don’t want plot spoilers for anything, but like, how many Star Wars movies do you have?”

The two teens vanished, chatting about pop culture, and Weird Miles stole the now-abandoned Rosie. “Here, Harry Potter exists, but the details are different,” he said thoughtfully. “The series is about Neville Longbottom, Harry’s just a background character. Right?”

Alternate Matt shrugged. “I never read it. Foggy?”

He shook his head.

Miles-  _ his _ Miles- started fiddling with the portal watch on his wrist. “I think we should get back. I want to talk to Uncle Aaron.”

Matt pet Ruthie one last time and set her down. “It is probably time we got going,” he said reluctantly. “Can you point Peter towards our dimension once he gets back?”

“Sure!” Old Peter said cheerfully. “I think I’m going to hang around a bit. I want to say goodbye to lil baby me.”

“Speaking of which,” Matt said, a thought popping into his mind, “Me, come here. I need to talk to you.”

His doppleganger followed him onto the roof. “What do you want?”

Jeez, baby him was so on edge. At least he’d settle down in a few years, probably. “I just wanted to talk to you about how you’re a dragon. I got kind of thrown into it, so I wanted to walk you through it.”

Other Him sounded thrown by this compassion. “Oh. Um, okay? When you said dragon, you meant metaphorically, right?”

“Nope. That’s why I smell like wind.” He gave himself a moment to process this, and moved forward. “If you’re anything like me, you feel like you’ve got the devil in you clawing to get out. That’s the dragon side of you that you’ve shoved down. Our mom was a dragon, and she passed it down to us.”

He changed into his dragon form, and his alternate self’s heartbeat went wild. “You’re a dragon.”

“And you can be too. Just find the fire in you. Follow your gut reactions. What would you say if I told you I was going to take Foggy back to my world?”

Before Matt had even finished the sentence, the other him growled. “That’s good. Follow that reflex. Remember when Fisk threatened Foggy? You wanted to protect him.”

He felt the fire in the other dragon flaring up, and added, “When you meditate, you’re using the fire in you to heal yourself more quickly than a normal person. You love sitting in the sun, and Foggy calls you a cat, but really, you’re a lizard. You hate the cold because it makes you feel sluggish, and once you transform for the first time, you learn how to use your fire to heat yourself up in the winter.”

He tilted his head, trying to think of what else would be the same between dimensions. “You’ve always run a little hot, haven’t you? Foggy curls up next to you in the winter.” And he transforms to curl up around Miles and Peter when the patrols get cold so the two little spiders don’t freeze while they wait for Matt to hear someone in trouble.

His younger self’s breathing slipped into the meditative breaths he used to heal faster, and Matt was just about to explain more when the other Murdock shifted skins.

“That’s it!” he said delightedly. “How does it feel?”

He heard the shuffling of scales against each other, and Other Matt took a few seconds before he spoke firmly. “Yeah. It feels  _ right _ .”

“Hell yeah! Okay, real quick before I go. Few things you’ve got to know. The Hand will fuck you up if they get you. They take away your hoard and your territory to turn you into a Black Sky. I don’t know much about what it is, Elektra doesn’t like to talk about it, but it’s not good. They would kill Foggy.”

Young Matt hissed, and Matt nodded. “I know. Um, your dragoney instincts are going to be strong for a few days, but it’s just while you get used to being more aware of your dragon side. It’ll fade, you’re going to be overprotective and territorial. Foggy’s going to be cranky about it, I guarantee. What else?” he mused.

“Oh. Aging. If you spend more than a couple days at a time in your dragon form, you’ll age much slower. It takes time to built up the weirdness, so like, going on patrols as a dragon is fine, but if you stay a dragon for days at a time, it’ll start to add up, probably. Elektra, in my verse at least, is from the 1920s, she just took a really long nap in between. Si- our mom is even older, I think. Do you want to know who she is?”

“You know her?”

“Yeah, Elektra helped me find her. You do know Elektra in this verse, right?”

“Of course,” he scoffed. “And um. Yeah, I think I’d like to know who she is.”

“Okay, well. In my verse at least, she’s Sister Maggie.”

“From the orphanage?” Weird Matt said, his voice a strange mixture of outrage and relief.

“Yeah. Sorry.” He took a moment to let it settle in, and added, “I really should get going. I’ll record all of the stuff I just mentioned, as well as a few other things. I don’t know if you’ve met many other vigilantes yet, but they’re great.”

“I’ve met Jessica Jones, and I knew Peter. Those are the only ones.”

“There’s a bunch more you’ll run into. They’re fantastic. And you can always count on me if you need backup, but trust Miles. If he’s anything like the one in my verse, he’s a good kid. Help him as much as you can.”

Matt changed back into human form, and the other Matt followed. He said, his voice soft for the first time, “I will. It’s what Peter would have wanted me to do.”

The sound of his voice followed him all the way home, where he sat with Foggy, his Foggy, and breathed in the smell and sound and shape of his New York.

“You’re not him, you know,” Foggy said firmly when Matt explained what had happened in the other dimensions.

“But I  _ am _ .”

“No. It’s not,” he said relentlessly. “It’s like twins. You were born the same, but you’re different now.”

Matt paused. That was . . . actually a really good point. “But what if I  _ become _ like him?”

Foggy sighed fondly. “Matt, honey? You care about people. You know right from wrong, and you’re in therapy, and if you have worries, you can come to me or Karen, or the other vigilantes. Therapy and a support system sound like things that other Murdock needs.”

“Okay,” Matt said reluctantly.

“Actually,” he said thoughtfully, “that sounds exactly like what Gwen’s Matt needs. Tomorrow, you’re taking me to Earth-65, and I’m going to give your twin the scolding of a lifetime.”

Matt snorted. “I’ll make sure to tell Gwen. She’s going to want to be there for that.”

“Great,” Foggy said. He sounded satisfied, and Matt’s own worries had shifted back a bit by talking it out with his boyfriend.

“Oh, there was one other thing . . .”

“What was it?”

“We should get a cat.”

He laughed. “You know what? I think that sounds like a great idea.”

“I bet Karen would come and visit more often if we had a cat.”

“Nah, she seems like more of a dog person,” Foggy replied thoughtfully.

Matt shrugged. “You never know. I thought you were a dog person when I met you.”

“Nah, I like the people and animals I hang out with to be independent and petty, but still loving. Cats, you, Karen, Jessica Jones . . . the list goes on. I’m surprised you’re a cat person, I figured you would want a pet that’s energetic and affectionate.”

“Nah, dogs are too smelly and slobbery and gross. I fantasized about a pet snake for a little while,” Matt hummed. “They’re nice.”

Foggy shuddered. “Not all of us can be the man without fear. I know that snakes are good animals, but they’re still creepy as fuck.”

“They’re good boys!”

He chose to ignore that, and tilted his chair back slightly. “I’d like a cat. I’m glad you mentioned it.”

Matt grinned. “Peter and Miles wanted to come with us to pick it out.”

“They just want to hold a bunch of cats.”

“I know.”

“I think we should get an adult cat.”

“You think?” Matt replied, a little surprised. “Why?”

“Have you ever actually  _ owned _ a cat?”

“Well . . . no.”

“I haven’t lived with a cat in like twenty years, so between the two of us, I don’t think we’d be great at taking care of a baby cat. Also, adults don’t get adopted as much, so.”

“Okay,” he said immediately.

Foggy sounded surprised. “I figured you’d want a kitten.”

“I mean, we wouldn’t have to potty train an adult cat, so that’s another nice thing.”

“Exactly. I’m glad you understand me here.”

Matt smiled at him fondly, thanking his lucky stars that he had Foggy to talk to. “You’re the one who always understands.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I plan for every universe matt to be dragons? No, but I think it would be fucking hilarious if I ever wrote them all together. Imagine a bunch of dragon Matts gathered together. They’d be insufferable. One of them would inch towards the one Foggy in the room and everyone would start spitting sparks. Also I have plans for a dragoney Murderdock (hint: he got trained by the hand in the comics?? Well we know what the Hand does to dragons in my au)
> 
> Side note: I just fucking love absurdly long historical names for cats. One of my old cats was named Wolfie (wolfgang amadeus mozart, of course) and my friend named her cat after FDR and calls her Rosie. Feel free to rattle off some names that would be good cat names!

**Author's Note:**

> my god how have I not made more puns? The floodgates have opened now with “web of connections”. There’s no escape now ahahahaahha  
> I did a lot of reading about different universes for this chapter, and I love the comics. they’re just so consistently wacky. I wish the movie had used a little more of the comics tone, y’know????? Anyway, Earth 1218 is our universe (yes, we have a canon Earth number, wild) and from what I read, 11326 is an anti-mutant world that they probably wouldn’t enjoy  
> Anyway i’m just fascinated by Gwen’s verse, and I really need to figure out a way to read her comics. Kingpin Matt? HELL YEAH. I’m so hyped to write the next chapter. there WILL be punching. i haven't written it yet but i guarantee that at least ONE Murdock will start a fistfight immediately.  
> also , me having a good guess about how many chapters a fic of mine will have BEFORE i post the last chapter??? what?!?! crazy.


End file.
